Mistakes were made
Marriage is about many things, of course, and I will not list them here, because that is boring. But one underrated aspect of marriage is the ability to make fun of each other. For what would the union of two souls be, if one half couldst not point at the other and go, “Ha ha, my beloved is incorrect about something”?
To wit: on Halloween I was tasked with picking up candy. In our building, you can leave out candy for the trick or treating children, who then wander the hallways, ransacking the bowl you’ve left out as they pass by. (You could also just answer your doorbell, which would be more fun for all parties involved, except Hazel goes into “Time to murder!” mode when the doorbell rings and we don’t want to scare kids that much.) We did this last year, and I have only a faint memory of the night, which went like this: Leave out candy, hear children in the halls doing whatever children do, find bowl empty at the end of the night. What’s important to note is that I had no memory of how often we refilled the bowl or how many children were around. I have no memory of it!
So I went to the drugstore in our neighborhood, where I saw that the “seasonal” aisle was completely cleaned out, of course; most people don’t wait until the day of Halloween to buy their supplies. There were a couple of displays with smaller bags of candy, not the giant variety packs you can buy, so I commenced grabbing a bunch of them. It’s also important to note that I had not had lunch yet and I was feeling a little lightheaded as well as hungry, so I wanted to get those bags and get out of there.
So I got home and dumped the bags of candy on the dining room table and went to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, as you do, and that’s when I hear Scott calling out something or other about the number of bags I purchased. He seemed to be … was it amazement? Disbelief? Was he impressed?
“You bought six bags of candy?” he said.
“I thought it was better to have too much, than, you know, the opposite,” I replied, reasonably and wisely.
“Six bags! Do you know how few kids are in our building?”
“Yeah, but don’t they … you know, don’t other kids get in?”
“No! How much did it cost?”
“Uh, 25, I think?”
“You spent TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS on candy?”
I sure did!
Okay, so apparently I bought way, way too much candy. Scott had a field day about this. He took pictures of the pile of candy to send to our friends in the building. (“Look what Alice did!”) He continued to exclaim about the types of candy. (“You bought DUM-DUMS?!” The selection was limited! Anyway, like children don’t love a good lollipop!) He kissed me on the top of the head and pronounced me “adorable,” which I am not sure how I felt about, to be honest.
Then at the end of the night, after filling one (1) bowl of candy and leaving it out, he sent me this picture.
So what I’m trying to say is, we have a lot of candy here. I can’t say I’m sad about it.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE
We were leaving our apartment the other morning when I realized my phone was missing. And of course I had the ringer turned off, so calling it, as Scott commenced to do, only elicited a faint buzz. Scott was annoyed, because we were running late and, to be fair, I seem to lose my phone all the time. Which is surprising, because we live in a two-bedroom apartment, and you would think it would be hard to lose a phone that often in a 900 square foot space. You would be wrong! I’m very good at it.
Anyway we had figured out that it was somewhere in the bedroom, the buzzing was definitely coming from that area, and yet it still proved elusive. Both of us were losing our tempers and sniping at each other over our search methods (e.g. “Why are you looking under the bed? “I already looked there,” etc.). Then, finally, Scott found it: “Honey,” he said in his most “I’m trying to be patient with you” voice, “It was in the bed.” Implying that I had made the bed with my phone between the sheets, like a lunatic.
And oh, reader. That’s when I got to reply with the following:
“You made the bed.”
Can you imagine the level of satisfaction I enjoyed at that moment? Oh, you think I’m the idiot? LOOK WHO THE IDIOT ACTUALLY IS. I’M HOLDING UP A MIRROR. TO YOUR FACE.
Then Scott gave me the ultimate gift: the four most satisfying words in the English language. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
And then I was like, “Hey, remembered when you tried to gaslight me about my phone?” and he had to TAKE IT. To my credit, I didn’t bring it up repeatedly. Just now. And for all of you.